The Story of Philip Methuen

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THE STORY OF PHILIP METHUEN THE STORY 01 PHILIP METHUEN B_ MRS. J. H. NEEDELL AUTHOR OF *^ ' STEPHEN ELLICOTT's DAUGHTER,' ' PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN ' It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be ; Or standing like an oak three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. In small proportions we just beauties see, And in short measures Life may perfect be ' Ben Jonpon LONDON FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. AND NEW YORK

Chapter I

' O Florence, with thy Tuscan fields and hills, Thy famous Arno, fed with all the rills, Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy.' ' Born into life ! who lists May what is false hold dear, And for himself make mists Through which to see less clear ; The world is what it is for all our dust and din.' M. Arnold. The scene is Florence, the month May, and the time some two hours after sunrise. Already the city is astir, and the country people are trooping in and will soon be setting forth their fragrant wares in the market-place. Eggs in pyramids, of every shade of colour, from pure white to softest brown and palest green ; curd-cheeses, round and smooth, and stacked like cannon-balls, with little twigs of the still tender chestnut-trees, fresh picked in the dewy dawn, thrust into the interstices.

The time for ripe fruits has not come yet ; the gourds and pomegranates are hanging crude and colourless on their parent stems, and the neutral-tinted berries of the grape scarcely show beneath the full spring leafage of the vines. But colour is not wanting : tall arum lilies stand in stately ranks, while masses of gladioli, cyclamen, violets, and the bearded hyacinth are lying about in heaps, soon to be divided by swift fingers into posies, when they willoverflow the market-place and be exposed upon the old gray basements of the city's palaces, to tempt the eye of the English and American stranger. Whilst the patient mules are being unladen, and the baskets unpacked, the voices of girls and women, with a sprinkling of men amongst them, rise clear and resonant in the delicious morning air ; if the joke be rough or the speech sharp, it comes softened and rounded in the mellow Tuscan patois ; and a glance at their lithe forms and bold and vivid faces shows where Michael Angelo got his models and Savonarola his eager followers.

But let us leave the market, and ascending the left bank of the river towards the Uffizi, stand still for a moment and look around at perhaps the fairest sight under heaven. Domes and spires fill the smokeless air, which, of necessity, are of carven stone ; but where else is stone carved and shaped into leafage and loveliness so delicate and ethereal ? Look at the finely-fretted parapet of Or San Michele, lifting its sharp outlines above the dim tortuous streets which enclose it ; while the huge church itself, square-set like a fortress, uprears its bulk against the clouds with a mountainous majesty which seems to make it more akin to nature than to the work of man. And then by a little change of position you will be able to catch a glimpse of the Campanile of Giotto, more than five centuries old, but looking to-day, as has been charmingly said, ' as fair and fresh in its perfect grace as if angels had built it in the night just past.' But detail and panegyric are out of place where every church exhibits or encloses the supreme efforts and triumphs of genius, to be only outdone by the treasures stored in the noble palaces themselves ; and the whole is pitched in the midst of cypress-groves, olive-slopes, and gardens flooded with sunshine and alight with changeful colour, while the yellow Arno rolls through the fertile valley and the distant Apennines shut in the picture.

On the morning with which we have to do, a man has just pushed open the window of a room in one of the irregular picturesque houses on the Lung' Arno, and stepping out on the balcony which projects over the full flowing stream below, leans heavily over the rail and gazes out at the scene before him. He is intimately acquainted with the city on which his eyes rest, so as to be able to fill in from memory every point where vision fails. He can even recall the harmonious tints and weather-stains of certain old frescoes on the wall in a far-away street, or some grotesque bas-relief on a crum bling lintel ; he can see the dusky interior of some forge or trader's stall, which he will never pass again, or that of some stately church where the vast roof tapers up to a shimmering point of light, and through the issue of the halfopened doors the baked pavement of the piazza gleams white and dazzling outside.

At this very moment colour and light, sunshine and warmth, steep the whole world beyond his window: the pulse of life seems almost audible to listening ears. The senses of this man, Lewis Trevelyan, who was gazing and listening, were almost preternaturally acute, for protracted disease had worn to tenuity the carnal elements of his body, and wrought upon nerves and brain till the highest point of tension and exasperation had been reached. He was quite aware that almost to the last the sands in his hour-glass were run, and that probably he would never be able to repeat the effort which had enabled him to reach the outside balcony of his room. Even now his strength was so far failing him as to make it difficult for him to retain his grasp upon the parapet ; and a pang of mixed fear and humiliation had struck across his heart when he became aware of an opening door and footsteps in the room behind him, and the next moment a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a strong arm caught and propped his staggering figure. ' You here !' he gasped, looking up into the face bent anxiously over him — ' you here !

What can have drawn you forth from St. Sulpice? I never expected to see your face again.' ' Wait a moment till you have recovered yourself a little, and I will explain.' It would not have been difficult for Philip Methuen to have raised the sick man in his arms and carried him back to the couch he had quitted, but he refrained, from a quick perception that such an action would have hurt the pride of the other, and contented himself with help ing his painfully slow and difficult progress back to his former place and position. When he had arranged his pillows, and given him a few drops of wine from a bottle of Johannisberger which stood on a little table close at hand, he drew a chair to the sofa and sat down beside his friend. He had brought in with him from the market a bunch of roses and a fragrant sheaf of lilies of the valley, which he had flung down in his haste to help Trevelyan, and a little rough terra-cotta pot full of ripe strawberries. ' I see — you have not forgotten,' said Trevelyan who had rallied a little by this time ; ' but the child is not here.

I have sent her back again to Fiesole ; what could a dying man do with her ?' Then after a pause, during which the young man re garded him with grave, compassionate eyes : ' You came in the nick of time to save me from the death of a dog ; had I dropped on those stones I should never have risen again. Conceive. my lying there in the eye of the sun till old Assunta had come in to discuss my superfluous dinner, or perhaps Richetti himself, bent on repeating the plausible falsehoods to which my ears had at last grown deaf ! At last ! it has been a long process, Philip.' Methuen's face was clouded and distressed, but he seemed to find it hard to answer. The other observed him with a keenness which weakness seemed scarcely to obscure, and smiled as if amused. ' Come,' he continued, ' say what is in your heart, if it will make it lighter.

Repeat the old formulas — my friendship will stand the strain. I have found life a bad business — a hard struggle, with the certainty of being vanquished in the end. Is not that the gospel according to Schopenhauer, and which I have proved and prac tised? You believe in God and a future life— in His goodness and management of affairs. If there were one, I would thank Him that He has given me courage enough, in the thick of my miseries and disappointments to reject consolations to which the whole universe gives the lie !' He spoke eagerly, in spite of pain and breathlessness : his was a temperament which would never grow cold till the hand of death quenched its ardours. It seemed to Philip that he rather desired to believe what he asserted than believed it. ' Are we able to pronounce on the whole universe ?' he answered. ' Is not doubt a shade better than despair ?' Again the kind cynical smile played round Trevelyan's pale lips. ' I know you have the courage of your opinions, Methuen, and only spare me controversy and exhorta tion out of pity for my condition.

But the time is gone by for that. I never hoped to have the chance of talking about my affairs to you again, and must make the best of it. But first, what has happened? How comes it that that tawny poll of yours is not yet disfigured by the tonsure ? If you had come back a full-blown priest, I am not sure I should have refused to make my confession, and received the sacred wafer at your hands. It would have done me no harm, and given you an innocent satis faction.' ' AU that is postponed. I have consented, if not to give up my vocation, at least to consider about giving it up.' Trevelyan stared at him in blank astonishment. ' I thought nothing more could surprise me, but this does. Come, Methuen, I see the matter goes hard with you, but there need be no hesitation in making con fidences to a dying man.

Has your faith got a shock ? No ; it was too inveterate for fact or reason to shake it. Has the Abbe de Seve made some requisition beyond even your fanaticism to meet, or the world-wise Archbishop himself opposed your singular predilection for martyrdom amongst the unsavoury savages of the Corea ? Any way, it is a satisfaction I never bargained for. May I wish you joy?' ' As you like ; only bear in mind I have received the hardest blow fate could well have dealt me — that the deliberate plan of my life is upset. Try and understand what it is to have been on the point of consecration to a work you believed the best on earth and to find yourself suddenly pulled back and forced to face the other way— a way you dislike and contemn.' ' Ah, I begin to see daylight ! Some stroke of good fortune has occurred to you, and your mother, like a sensible woman as she is, has put her veto on the priesthood.' ' You are right in a way.

My cousin is dead on the very eve of his wedding-day, and my uncle writes to urge — to command me to ' He hesitated. ' To raise up seed unto your cousin ! Is it part of the compact to take the widowed bride, or will a free choice be allowed you ? In that case, I shall put in a claim for my little gipsy. Forgive me, Philip, but I shall go down to the grave better content that you are compelled to play a man's part in life. Priests don't count as men.' Methuen smiled. ' I should have supposed a disciple of Schopenhauer would have deplored the probability of adding to the un redeemed sum of human misery, but there is but one logical faith. At least you now understand how the case stands with me, and we can talk of other things. You are much weaker, Trevelyan, than I expected to find you. Tell me anything you wish that it is in my power to do.

I start for England to-day to be in time for poor Mark's funeral. ' 'Then you must come back,' was the eager rejoinder. ' I have not a single friend in Florence, nor outside of it, for that matter. I look to you, Philip, to see me put under ground, with decency at least, and to wind up my affairs. There is about a couple of hundreds lying at the bank here to my credit, which will be enough for such meagre funeral rites as I desire, and for the few debts I leave behind. Should there be any surplus — well, that will be my daughter's fortune !' He spoke with concentrated bitterness, and added : ' Advise me what I am to do with the pauper !' ' You have positively no relations who would be her natural guardians ?' ' Yes. I have a sister married to a parson in Sir Giles THE STORY OF PHILIP METHUHN. 7 Methuen's own parish ; but they are poor, and she hates me.

I am talking against my strength, but must explain — if I can. Mine was not a good youth, Philip, and my early follies helped to ruin her prospects. Her dowry was swallowed up in the payment of debts it would have been a shame to have left unpaid. Noblesse oblige, and we were an honourable family, though a very im poverished one. Through this the man of her choice threw her over, and she has always visited his sins, as well as my own, on my head, in spite of my endeavour to convince her that it was a stroke of good luck that she found him out this side of matrimony. She says also that I broke my father's heart. She would turn my miserable little girl out of doors.' There was an awkward pause, then Trevelyan spoke again : ' I have thought of your mother, Philip. Ah, I see ; that, too, is a forlorn-hope !

Let it be as if I had not spoken. The little minx has the gift of alienating good will.' 'It is not that,' said the other quickly; 'but my mother has no love for children. I often think she barely tolerates her son. But if your sister is married to the Vicar of Skeffington, my task is easy. I will go to her before I see you again. I cannot believe that it will be difficult to arrange matters.' ' That means, you will offer to pay her handsomely for the girl's board, lodging, and education ; but I would not trust her even then. Moreover, it strikes me you are reckoning without your host . I know your yearly income, my dear fellow — what the mother disburses, pardon me, and on what the son subsists, charities inclusive. No doubt the old baronet will increase your allowance, now you are become heir-presumptive, but only on condition that you show yourself accommodating.

It will not be wise or well for you to burden yourself with the charge of a young woman on first starting in life. You are now, remember, one of the laity.' ' A young woman !' repeated Methuen, smiling. ' That is what it is her misfortune to become, unless we could both go under ground together, which would be the best solution of the difficulty. I would not own to anyone but you how anxious I am about the girl s uture, with her promise of beauty, her strong will and vehement temper.' He sighed impatiently. ' I wish she had never been born ! How can I die in peace, leaving that miserable little waif afloat on life's current ?' Methuen got up and looked at his watch. ' It grieves me to say I must go, but a week hence we will talk this matter over again. You may rest assured that I will see your sister, and bring back good news to you.' He held the frail hand of the sick man closely but gently grasped, and looked down at him with an expres sion of such compassionate sympathy as to bring the tears to his eyes. ' You must live till I come back,' he added, ' by God's grace or force of will.

I will write to you at every chance till I stand here by your side again. Addio, a rivederci !' As he went out Trevelyan turned his face to the wall and groaned. 'Never morel' he said to himself, 'never more! I have looked my last upon the one face I care to see.'

Chapter II

' A life of nothings, nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth !' The Tiro Voices. It was a late spring in England. Cutting east winds had prevailed through the whole of May, and at the end of the month there came a frost so severe as to nip to the core the well-expanded blossoms of the Dorset apple orchards, and with them the hopes of a profitable harvest. ' What could God A'mighty mean by sending such a cruel night of weather?' asked one honest farmer of another as they stood beneath the blackened branches ; and gardeners surveyed, with equal despair, the scorched and shrivelled appearance of their wall-fruit trees, which yesterday had been alive with promise. The very woods seemed to suspend development ; the oak and beech still showed their gaunt gray boughs but thinly clad with tender leafage; and the ebon buds of the ash were locked hard and close in the ungenial air.

Here and there the wild cherry and crab gleamed white or pink against the dim and dusky pines ; and the pale stars of the persistent primrose still covered the banks amongst the mossy roots of hazels, through which the ferns were thrusting their russet scrolls. But the tender blue of the forget-me-not, and the full amethyst of the hyacinth, delayed their blossoming, and the spotted cowslip refused to open in the hard and frost-bound meadows. Methuen Place, the seat of one of the oldest families in the county, but at the same time of a family whose annals were unknown to fame, stood in a hollow facing the wide upland sweep of its magnificent park, and served as half-way house between the substantial borough of Crawford on the one side, and the county town of Trichester on the other. It was a low picturesque pile of massive gray stone, bearing the weather-stains and minute moss-growths of generations upon its hoary front, and with the deep angles of its solid walls and the arch of its ponderous entrance-gates covered with the lustrous green of magnolias and myrtles.

But in the late afternoon of the day when Philip Methuen first saw it, its aspect was singularly forlorn and depressing. He had driven in a hack-fly from the station at Trichester, and was chilled to the bone by his long journey through the biting air, as well as by a sense of discomfiture at the seeming absence of all welcome or expectation of his coming. In reply to his inquiry as to whether there were any servant or carriage waiting for him from Methuen Place, the station-master had answered in the negative, with a certain dry significance which somehow brought the colour into his cheek ; and the man whose vehicle he had chosen, addressing the rubicund driver of the ' Antelope railway 'bus, just on the point of departure with its scanty freight, said, with a wink of intense significance, as he took his seat on the box and picked up the reins : 'If the gen'elman knowed Sir Giles's grays as well as you and I do, Bill, he might have saved hisself the trouble of asking the question.' He was quite prepared under encouragement to have given Philip the most minute information respecting his uncle's establishment, habits, and reputation, but that did not suit the young man's mood or temper, although he was not able to defend himself from the damaging impression instinctively received.

As they entered the park and approached the house, he perceived that every blind was down, giving a blank and dismal effect to the whole fa9ade. The flower-beds were empty of flowers, the soil lying under heaps of garden compost, and the lawns, under the scorching east winds, looked brown and impoverished. Not a gleam of colour or suggestion of warmth, natural or human, met his eyes, nor did there seem any stir of life about the premises — not even the bark of a dog was to be heard. But then it was to be remembered the house contained the dead heir and the dead hopes of its owner. The driver had made his way up the broad shallow stone steps which led to the principal entrance, and had knocked heavily at the door, muttering, ' It was allers desp'rate hard to rouse 'em.' He was going to repeat the summons, when Philip jumped out to stop him ; the sound seemed like sacrilege on that gloomy portal. ' We will wait a minute,' he said ; ' perhaps you don't know there is a death in the house ?' The man grinned. ' Don't know that Mark Methuen is dead!' he answered; 'all the county knows that well enough, and knows, too, that the old man and his son hated each other like poison.

No one would ever have taken him for a gentleman, whichever way up you tried it. He was a rum un,' he added reflectively, ' he was !' At this moment the door was suddenly thrown open, and Philip stepped for the first time over the threshold of his ancestral home. From a boy he had listened to the querulous em bittered complaints of his mother at her banishment from all share of the family distinction and privileges, and the shameful injustice accruing, not so much to younger sons as to younger sons' wives. Her conception of the glories of Methuen Place, and of her brother-in law's social importance, were probably exaggerated ; but, still, this was the house where generation had succeeded generation, and where his own father had first drawn the breath of life. Words would be inadequate to describe the strength of the yearning with which the boy, mocked and misunder stood by his surviving parent, had regarded his father's memory; and the prospect of so soon seeing one so closely allied to him in blood as Sir Giles Methuen caused him a profound secret agitation.

There was something of this indicated in the tone in which he inquired after his uncle of the staid elderly woman who had advanced to meet him as he entered the house ; and it may have had the effect of causing some softening of expression on her part, combined as it was with that easy graeiousness of accost which is all but invariably wanting in the manners of young Englishmen to their inferiors, and a smile the sweetness of which would have redeemed the ugliest face, and was even the crowning charm of his. ' Sir Giles keeps his room strictly since — since what has happened,' she said ; ' but he gave orders, if you arrived before dark, that you were to be shown upstairs to him at once. I will take you to your room, sir, and come back for you as soon as I have given him notice. I dare say you would much rather have dressed and dined first ; but Sir Giles is not one to think much of these things, Mr. Methuen.' ' Neither do I. I shall be quite ready when you come for me.' He followed her up the broad shallow oak staircase — almost as black as ebony with age and friction, and the massy balustrade of which was carved at its junction and terminal points with elaborate grotesqueness — across a wide corridor, set with numerous windows on the one side, commanding a view of the park, and which were faced by doors on the other.

There was an effect of old-world decaying luxury in the worn carpet which covered the floor, the finely harmonized colours and fabric of which proclaimed the work of some Eastern loom — in the heavy tapestried draperies at the windows, and the old velvet-padded seats below. The family coat of arms, with the tra ditional badge of its rank, were emblazoned in the upper lights of each, and dim portraits of long - deceased ancestors filled up the panels of the wall. The bed-chamber into which he was shown was on the same scale of ancient, ponderous dignity. Bed, couches, and windows were hung or covered with superb old tapestry, and the black oak floor displayed the same costly though decaying covering as the corridor outside. There were carved chairs and presses in the apartment which a modern æsthete would have estimated at half a king's ransom ; and the high mantel, curiously niched and carved, would incontinently have been removed by him to one of the reception-rooms of the house.

The woman, who had introduced herself to Philip as Mrs. Gibson, the housekeeper of the establishment, attended him upstairs with a mixed air of solicitude and formality. On entering the room she indicated to him certain arrangements for his comfort, which seemed to prove her undisputed control over the household, and left him with a broad hint to be quick at his toilet, as ' Sir Giles was well-nigh worn out with trouble, and never very patient at the best of times.' The young man's preparations were so rapid that he was standing waiting before the window which over looked the principal gardens, observing the dreary effect of a pretty Italian fountain, the basin of which was dry and moss-grown, and the couch of the water-god a re ceptacle for drifting leaves, when the expected summons came, and a few moments more saw him ushered into his uncle's presence.

The room was a small study, lined with books from floor to ceiling, but otherwise somewhat ■3 barely furnished. A huge easy-chair was placed near one of the windows with its back to the door, and the figure of the man sitting in it was so frail and bowed as to be quite invisible to anyone entering the room. Mrs. Gibson, having opened the door and pronounced the name of the visitor, had instantly retreated, closing it carefully behind her. Philip hesitated a moment, then he saw a thin white hand, with long supple fingers, grasp the table which stood close to the chair, and Sir Giles Methuen, raising himself with evident difficulty, faced round and confronted his nephew. The figure was insignificant, as we have said, and the delicately featured face was prematurely worn and old ; but the eyes which shone under the thick gray brows retained their fire and penetration, and there was nothing senile in the hard expression of the firm thin lips.

There was neither affection nor even benevolence in his scrutiny, it was simply an investigation ; and after a few moments he sank back again into his chair with a sort of stifled groan, whether produced by bodily or mental distress seemed doubtful. The young man, though certainly not encouraged to do so, came forward, and after his foreign fashion took his uncle's hand and put it to his lips. ' I am come,' he said, ' because you commanded me to come. You cannot be more grieved for the cause than I am.' Sir Giles shivered a little as if cold, and continued to gaze at him intently. ' There is not a line of your figure, nor a feature of your face, which recalls my brother,' he said, ' which is to your advantage unquestionably, for the Methuens were never a handsome race. No doubt you are like the woman he married.' A sneer sat on his lips as he spoke. ' I think I can trust my memory sufficiently to be sure upon the point ; but your voice, Philip Methuen, would be enough to convince me of your identity.

Say some thing else.' ' Shall I say how sorry I am to find you so weak and ill'-' i4 THE STORY OF PHILIP METHUEN. ' Also so old and unprepossessing ? Yet hardly that ! When was the failure of the man in possession otherwise than welcome to the heir ?' Philip smiled. ' That is only from the lips outward ; you do not really believe your brother's son is capable of such a feeling. Also you must be aware that I have planned my life on very different lines. I want nothing that you can give me. Even now I am come out of respect due to the head of my family — more to listen to what your wishes are, than with the purpose of yielding to them. That will be a question for debate.' Sir Giles's keen glance quickened. ' ' Pon my soul, nephew, you lose no time in taking the initiative ! I think we will waive the discussion of your future till the natural heir, lying upstairs, is buried.